Managing To The Bottom Every leader has undoubtedly encountered that one aggravating team member who is always pushing the limits. Perhaps they’ve turned leaving early into a habit, or they over surf the internet on the company clock, or spend...

Forgiveness, The Unspoken Soft Skill Should leaders be forgiving? Have you ever heard the word forgiveness in any form from anybody inside the organizational walls pertaining to anything business? Forgiveness is certainly not a mainstream...

Coaching The Career ADD Employee One of the more critical roles leaders are responsible for is that of a career coach to assist with career pathing the folks on their team. What makes this responsibility critical is that lack of career mobility and...

The Forgotten Courage What type of person is more valuable to an organization? A highly compensated and strategically wise CEO who can’t forgive and isn’t trusted, or anybody else in the organization who has the emotional maturity to apologize, forgive,...

Close more sales If you have listened to the radio in the last twenty-four hours, you have no doubt heard an annoying weight loss ad. As annoying as they are, they can teach us a very critical lesson about how to be more successful closing sales. That...

I Understand Is Miscommunication In the process of communication, we frequently hear a term that on the surface appears to suggest good communication is in play and is spot on, but in reality, this phrase causes enormous miscommunication on a rather...

What Causes Leaders To Fail Over the past twenty-five years, The Employers Edge, our organizational development and talent management company, has been tracking the character and skill competencies that are most frequently causing leaders to fail or fall...

Good Training Is Driven By Outcomes The lesson to take note of here in professional sports is that every action they take, every thought they have leads to an outcome. The process is never the focus. Yet at the basis of so many leadership and team...

Work Should Be A Beautiful Place If you want to get the absolute best an employee has to give to the organization, start by putting that employee in a beautiful place. Start by thinking that the job the organization relies on them to do is not just a job....

Confident Leaders Make The Move Confidence is a belief that you can succeed at something and will demonstrate it by taking action. When you are confident, you will take more risks because you believe in your talents and abilities to get the desired...

Effectively Empowering People Have you ever found yourself in the situation as a leader where your people have asked to be more empowered, so you empower them as asked, but they don’t pick up the ball on the task they were empowered to do. So...

The Hamster Wheel Leader The hamster wheel leader is a term to describe the leader who is always racing to get ahead of the demands that control their entire life, but the demands come faster than the ability to get ahead of them. From the minute they get...

Accountability Is Bigger Than That In your next group meeting, ask the team to describe their understanding of accountability. You will probably get variations of these two definitions. 1. Do what you say you are going to do, and 2. Own it (the mistake,...

Critical Thinking Is More Willingness Than Ability The willingness to think critically trumps ability every time. Critical thinking is a form of engagement that happens on its own in a culture and environment free of obstacles preventing it. If the...

Behaviors That Impact Working Remotely There is a lot of great energy in the market right now pertaining to organizations moving their workforce to a remote working arrangement. While considering all of the cost/benefit impacts of a remote workforce...

Empowering The New Leader When a new manager/leader gets placed into a new management or leadership position, organizations don’t always do the best job setting this new person up for success. The new person is commonly given given a very specific title,...

The Best Salesperson Behaviors Is high assertiveness a behavior that leads to success with salespeople, or can it be detrimental? Do high performing salespeople need to be very social or not? Do salespeople with a high sense of urgency perform better in...

Both Sides of Change So the question was asked this week, “why can’t we get people to change”. It always comes down to two reasons, however, the problem is most leaders in organizations only consider one of the two. Therefore, no change. The two reasons...

Hiring The Fastest Turtle Asking potential new hires for opinion about themselves is like asking the fastest turtle the same question. The fastest turtle believes they are fast because in their environment of slow turtles, they are the fastest. Their...

SMART goals could be smarter We have long lived by the acronym SMART for setting goal structure and scope. That stands for Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic, and Timely, and is a great baseline for understanding what a goal means and where...

Assess People to Honor Life When you complete an interview with a new candidate, what is it you really know about them? More importantly what behaviors don’t you know, how are those behaviors going to show up later, and how is that going to impact all...

Do Behavioral Assessment Pigeon Hole People When engaged in a conversation today on the use of behavioral assessments, a person made the simple comment “we don’t use behavioral assessments because we don’t like to pigeon hole people”. The comment is...

Leaders Forecast Obstacles Leadership is traditionally defined by some of the bigger competencies like motivating people, communicating plans, delegating, and developing people. Sometimes the role of a leader is simple in form, but complicated...

What Makes For A Good Behavioral Assessment We often get calls from organizations looking to improve people related matters, and they feel a good behavioral assessment would be a valuable tool to help them reach their goals. The question is,...

Self Engaging Teams I keep trying to find ways to engage the team and I’m running out of ideas. What do you suggest? As a coach we frequently get asked this. However, imbedded in this question is the notion that it is always the leaders job to be the...

Look Under The Hood Hiring Look under the hood hiring is a bit like looking under the hood when you buy a vehicle. You don’t want to get fooled by a nice shiny paint job with chrome wheels. You know what’s under the hood is what matters and is expensive...

Look Under The Hood Hiring – Take Charge Candidates the organization is looking to hire can have a very professional and convincing initial impression in an interview which is why you have to look under the hood when hiring so you know exactly what you are...

Assess New Hires For Manageability If the organization has a goal to improve performance by hiring for job fit, it is critical that the leadership assess candidates to identify the personality construct of manageability. Manageability is one’s connection...

Look Under The Hood Hiring Assess For Objectivity The personality trait of objectivity (OJ) is described as one’s natural way of forming beliefs and perceptions about relationships, people, and circumstances. And that natural way is based on facts or...

I Have Permission To Act Badly Why is it that when people are mega competent in their professional role, they can justify giving themselves permission to act badly in their relationship or leadership roles? It is far too common that we see beliefs and...

Group Coaching To understand the concept of group coaching, first start with what you know as leadership training, and then add engagement, accountability, transparency, experiential learning, learning expectations, and cost effectiveness to it. Training...

People Don’t Change, There Reasons Do Everything starts with a reason. Getting people to see change is as simple as adding two plus two. Getting them to engage in the change is bit more complicated but if they understand this simple “ratio” to change...

Overcoming fear requires a reason Have you ever tried to manage a fear and noticed that the more you manage it the worse it gets. You may have explored volumes of strategies available on how to manage fear by a lot of really smart people and if the...

Before Any Question Before any question you ask, it must first occur to ask it. All the books, white papers, blogs you read and experts you listen to to improve your questioning skill are of no value if the thought of asking a question never crosses your...

When Leaders Fall Victim To Being A Victim Nobody promised that leadership would be fair, but when leaders fall victim to being a victim, they actually perpetuate the unfairness that they believe they are the victim of. What’s particularly heinous, is that...

Avoid The #1 Hiring Mistake In the last six months, have you heard this comment about a new hire who is already gone? “They interviewed so well I don’t know why they couldn’t perform?” And now the organization gets to drop another $50,000 to fill a...

Good Coaching – When a Goal Isn’t a Goal What does it mean to be a better communicator? What does it mean to treat people fairly? What does it mean to be a better listener or better manage meetings? As a coach helping leaders set goals, we often hear...

Remember To Be Human, Appreciate When you walk into that meeting today before you jump into item one on the agenda, pause and quietly consider this thought for each individual at the table. “That person right here in front of me is here to do a good job...

Getting Leaders To Delegate Picture this, you have a leader who is wonderful. They do great work, have a great attitude, fit the company culture, but they work every night until 8:00pm and they are so burned out their very existence is about to implode on...

Getting People to Focus Don’t ask me why, but we regularly encounter leaders who have been in leadership roles for a long time, who have been very successful, yet have never individually reviewed with their team members, the activities that make the...

Embrace The Problem There are so many problems to solve in the normal course of business that we just don’t need any more. However, if a problem is facing you straight in the face today, make the best use of it, and that starts with a mindset and belief...

Moving People To Be Accountable In your next staff meeting, ask people the definition of accountability. You will typically get an answer variation of “do what you say you’re going to do”, or “own your mistakes”. The beauty of this typical belief is that...

Keep Conflict Resolution Simple As the leader of the team, you may occasionally find yourself the referee between two people who are upset with each other. Perhaps you are one of the upset parties but no matter. If an encounter or situation between...

Coaching Qualifications In the art of karate, an orange belt is one step above a beginning white belt. It is arguably the most dangerous belt to have because the student knows just enough feel overly confident, but not enough to really handle themselves...

Leadership Mindset This is one of those unwritten yet insightful revelations that is much more valuable than any assessment could reveal regarding the teams leadership mindset. And because it happens in real time, it can be addressed and corrected in real time. Here...

Step One Of Any Success? Everything starts with a reason, it always does. Every successful person who has started or grown a business made the move. But it is very important to know why some people jump, and some people don’t. The difference between people who have...

Passive Leadership Bullying There is not much that can be said to justify the nature of a bully. Bullies are demoralizing and leave the world worse off for it. However, they are upfront about their bullying tactics leaving no question as to their motives and where...

Leaders Want To Know "How To" Again this week we heard from a client in a frustrating tone, “we need you to tell us how to do it”. While meeting with the leadership team of a first time client, they were describing challenges customary of a fast growing family owned...

You Want Leaders, But Do They Want You? Did Von Miller join the cast of Dancing With The Stars to dance, have fun, get a little notoriety? Perhaps to some degree yes all the above, but make no mistake, Von Miller showed up to win because that is how winners think. He...

Why Develop Your Emerging Leaders At the time when a one year old child has learned they can reach their hand out to ask for something, the first thing we teach them as parents is to say please. Then when they get what they asked for we teach them to say thank you. We...

Leaders Can Derail! How does this happen. You have a high level leader who has been with the organization a long time. Through ambition, hard work, and giving the company tremendous value, they have been promoted to an executive position. They walk into a meeting one...

YOUR STRATEGY JUST GOT REAL Before you read this, take about 15 minutes to get up from your seat, walk out into the warehouse and ask a forklift driver what they know about the company’s strategic plan. Maybe call an accountant, an analyst, or a salesperson. When you...

Promote Leaders To A Behavioral Benchmark Put yourself here for a minute. You’re sitting behind the wheel of your car when to your surprise, your “Low Fuel” light comes on. To your relief there is a gas station just up ahead, so you pull in and notice the octane level...

Should you develop or terminate your executive leader? As a CEO, executive coach and leader of CEO round tables, the most frequent problem that I am asked to help solve is centered around management and leadership performance. The question that I am asked sounds...

Is That An Opinion Of A Person Or A Judgement? Opinions of people are often emotionally driven and not factually driven. This can be true with people who see with a positive perspective as well as those who tend to see people with a negative perspective. If I like...

Using Assessments To Predict Future Job Performance Research shows that a person can fake any relationship for up to 13 months. Quantifiably, almost every assessment used to predict new hire performance is fake able. So if a candidate applying for a job in your...

Executive Search Recruiting Tips - Assessments That new leader didn’t work out. How did that happen? One of the many reasons could be that you used the wrong assessment. Using the wrong assessment has the potential to do more harm than good. You might be better...

Selling is the Highest Paid Form of Hard Work Selling is the highest paid form of hard work. Why is it hard? Because you have to do those things others don’t want to do. You have to make sacrifices; start early; work late; take rejection; ask people to do what they...

Do You Know Why...your managers aren't coaching their people to improve performance and accountability? You know the problem, do you know Why? May we assess up to 5 managers and give specific insight that will help them develop coaching skills and improve their...

Why Do People Buy? Providing Solutions and Obtaining Commitment In order to be successful at selling we must be able to identify the reasons people buy. As simplistic as this seems, we must always keep in mind that people buy for their reasons--not ours. Our reasons...

Building client relationships & keeping them for life The concept of creating and nurturing relationships is as vital in sales as it is in any other business. Sales is a people business. Recognizing the importance of client relationships is a crucial part of...

Listening with Empathy "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood," is the fifth success habit from Steven R. Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talks about listening with empathy, not sympathy; listening by getting inside another...

Benefits from Enhancing Your Creativity Increasing your creativity at work can: Help you make the best use of your talents, aptitudes and abilities Enhance the enjoyment of your job Cause you to have more self-confidence Ultimately increase your income Cause you to...

To Delegate or not Delegate "Just delegate it," they say. As if it was that easy. What do I delegate? Why should I delegate? When should I delegate? How should I delegate? It seems like everyone has a handle on this but me. Actually, most managers do not find...

Getting More From Fewer People - Part II So, from Part I, we discussed how company executives must understand the core traits and motivations of their people so that the management team performs at a high level and the people you have working for your company can...

Getting More from Fewer People - Part I Millions of people have been displaced from their jobs in the last few years, because of this; many businesses had put a freeze on spending, hiring, consulting, and any new projects. With what objective in mind? To preserve the...

A View of the Business A view of the business sometimes requires getting away from the business. This past weekend, a group of us rode motorcycles up some high mountain trail to the continental divide, elevation 12,154 ft. It's not only a different world above the...

The Cost for Teams That Lack Trust Building a team based on trust is difficult because in the course of career advancement and education, most successful people learn to be competitive with their peers, and protective of their reputations. It is a challenge for them...

The Successful Sales Professional What exactly is a Successful Sales Professional? What separates the exceptional from the great, the great from good and the good from the mediocre? Simply put, successful sales professionals know that there are five disciplines they...

Embracing Coaching and the Use of Internal Coaches At a time when company performance is coming under greater scrutiny, organizations are looking to embrace coaching and build an internal core of coaches to drive change, development and results both now, in the...

Training and Coaching Perceptions Have you ever seen the initial rounds of American Idol, where the people auditioning think they are tremendously talented artists, but listening to them sing is actually brutal and they don’t even know it. The Grand Canyon size chasm...

Acquiring New Business - Lead Generation Fundamentals..... Pick a service business, any business, and ask yourself what all of the successful models have in common. The business you pick could be a home cleaning service, pet grooming, machinery maintenance, document...

Change How You Change Some people go to a different doctor every time the need arises, and some people have gone to the same doctor for 20 years and have no plans on changing that habit. That very same person who refuses to change doctors may change their furniture...

Effective Leaders When someone was once asked what it took to be an effective leader, he responded: "Be an effective follower!" While this response seems in opposition to leadership, it has truth to it. In order to effectively lead, you sometimes need to be...

Change Management So you're in yet another meeting, the discussion is intense. A proposal is out on the table involving some significant changes to the company. These proposed changes are going to test skills, structure, strategic abilities, and political...

Hey Coach, You're Not My Internal Coach As the pressure for Corporate America increases to be more self reliant on the issue of leadership development, they are asking more of the folks who are already on the payroll to adopt the role of internal coach, as opposed to...

Accountability Is? Ask a coworker, ask your boss, ask your neighbor, ask another member of your booster club, "what is accountability?" So frequently the response is "do what you say you're going to do. It's that simple". But is accountability really that simple,...

Feedback to Boost Motivation The young carry-out boy was asked, "How long have you been working here?" He replied, "Ever since they threatened to fire me." One of the best things you can do as a manager to boost motivation is to provide feedback. If you don't get...

Goal Defining and Setting When setting goals, people can get so caught up in all of the problems with various aspects of the business, that they get lost in the problem explanations and never get to the solution. Discussing problems as a preamble to setting goals is...

Accountability-A Responsible Action Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said, "The buck stops here." Along with the idea of accepting responsibility goes the concept of accountability. You are saying to people, "If things go wrong, I'm ultimately the reason...

Change Is Better An 80 year old man pulls into a gas station, steps out of his car, and starts pumping gas. His car is a brand new 2011 Volkswagen Touaregand and it shines like he just drove it off the lot. Now this sight makes one think, why in the world would an...

Trust or No Trust There were two Realtors in Starbucks the other day, engaged in a deep discussion around a fence that was not exactly on the property line of the home being sold. Coffee shops aren't really the best strategic place to get into an invigorating...

Communication Challenge - One-upmanship Two people are talking in the break room. First person says "wow the traffic was bad. My drive in today took over an hour". Second person says "you think that was bad, my drive nearly hit two hours". Well the first person...